Posted
by
Soulskill
on Tuesday May 22, 2012 @05:28PM
from the fantastic-voyage dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Hawaii have turned bubbles of gas into non-mechanical 'microbots' that they propel and steer with a laser. The laser heats up specific areas of the fluid that the bubble are in, and temperature gradients push the fluid towards the hot area, moving the bubble along. By using an array of lasers, the researchers can control the speed and direction of multiple bubble bots independently; this capability is not possible with other types of microbots, such as those controlled by a magnetic field, which affects all robots simultaneously. The University of Hawaii researchers hope their non-mechanical microbots can be used to assemble and manipulate microscopic structures, including live cells. In one experiment, they used the bubble bots to position 100-m-diameter glass beads to form the letters 'UH.'"

There's some leeway there. For example, industrial robots [wikipedia.org]. Many of them just repeat sequences, and have only very basic branching conditions, if any. Then there's the TALON [wikipedia.org] robots, which are mostly RC as well, but are still considered "robots". Demolition robots also come to mind, which, again, are strictly RC.

If their bubbles can manipulate physical objects according to a program then its a robot.

The bubble doesn't manipulate anything, the bubble doesn't execute software or follow a program. It's a bubble. It's a space filled with some gas suspended inside a liquid. The laser heats the liquid, the liquid moves, and the bubble moves with the liquid. If I throw a ball, and that ball hits something, say a "physical object", and it "manipulates" that object, is the ball now a robot?

Nooope. From TFA: "This level of control allows for very fine manipulation of small objects, and the picture below shows how a bubble robot has pushed glass beads around to form the letters "UH"

the bubble doesn't execute software or follow a program.

I think it's safe to assume those lasers are computer controlled, given they are using the term "robot" and some other obvious issues. Having the computing and control infrastructure external to the manipulator doesn't stop it from being a robot, it just becomes a remote controlled robot!

If I throw a ball, and that ball hits something, say a "physical object", and it "manipulates" that object, is the ball now a robot?

I think it's safe to assume those lasers are computer controlled, given they are using the term "robot" and some other obvious issues. Having the computing and control infrastructure external to the manipulator doesn't stop it from being a robot, it just becomes a remote controlled robot!

So that's my question, when does the bubble stop becoming a robot? Is it still a robot when the laser is off, or is it just a bubble then? What if the liquid isn't moving, it's just a liquid with bubbles in it. Are they still robots? Is my bottle full of robots? If I shoot a laser through my beer have I just created robots?

The lasers are what's important here. The bubbles are just along for the ride, as it were. The bubbles are passive. The liqui

Eventually, it may be possible to conjure swarms of microscopic bubble robots out of nothing, set them to work building microstructures with an array of thermal lasers, and then when they're finished, give each one a little pop to wipe it completely out of existence without any mess or fuss.

Take that you little SOBs. Kind of an interesting opportunity to use massively parallel processing though.

Er, no. M = mega. m = meter. Micron usually uses the abbreviation (mu, which slashdot refuses to print), and where you can't use mu for some reason some texts cheat by using the letter u. You, however, are dead wrong..

It appeared in the video that a single bubble was being manipulated by hand with a laser pointer. That's cool, but I was hoping to see perhaps a few hundred bubbles, with computer controlled precision scattering of the laser. Each bubble would be maneuvered in a very precise, computer controlled manner and the bubbles collaborating to perform specific functions. Is this the next step?

This looks like a tech that could be used to run a proper volumetric display. If you used glass beads of different colours, or found a way to make them fluoresce (perhaps by energizing an internal gas, or phosphor coating, or something?), you might be able to come up with something a fair bit more impressive than just "UM".

A real volumetric display would certainly have a lot of applications. I'm sure the military would love it for battlefield visualisations, etc.